If there is no self, then who receives my Karma?

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, Thay, answers questions. October 2013, Deer Park Monastery, California.

(Half Bell)

(Bell)

Dear Thay, dear Sangha,

if I set a cause into motion in this life

but the conditions are not right
for the effects until the next life,

who reaps the effects if there is no self?

This is the object of tomorrow's Dharma talk.

(Laughter)

The question is whether the actor
and the receiver of the fruit of action

are the same person or different persons.

Because things are impermanent

that person who produces
a good action today

and the person a few years later

that harvests the fruit of the action:

are they the same person?

Or are they two different persons?

And that is the teaching of
"the Middle Way."

That is very deep.

"No self"

does not meant you are not there.

When we look into our own body,

we see there is a community of cells;

and the cells in the body
working together in harmony.

And you don't see any cell

that pretends to be the president,
the leader, of all the cells.

(Laughter)

A biologist can experience
the truth of no self

in just looking into the body.

Neuroscientists, they have said
that the neurons in our brain,

they work together.
They operate like an opera.

There is no conductor at all;
there's no self.

There is a feeling, but no feeler.

There is a thought,
but there is no thinker.

Suppose you say,

“The wind blows."

Blowing is the action,

and the wind is the subject.

Suppose the wind does not blow.

It is not the wind at all.

Like, “The rain falls."

If the rain does not fall

it is not the rain at all.

So the raining,
the rain is the real thing.

There is no rainer.

There is no rainer outside of the rain.

There is no blower outside of the wind.

And that is something quite scientific.

So this is a deep experience.

There is no separate self.

People cannot “be."

People can only
"inter-be” with each other.

And that is the meaning of "no self."

"No self" does not mean
that there is no action

and there is no fruit of the action.

The chain of cause and effect
continues always.

You don't need, a self

in order for a chain of causation
to be possible.

This is a subject of meditation.

(Bell)

(Bell)